The altitude, position PID controllers design for UAV quadcopter: from theory to experiment

Abstract

Unmanned aerial vehicles, of which the four-rotor type, called UAV quadcopter, is increasingly applied in many aspects of socio-economic life, especially in difficult tasks that humans can hardly perform. UAV quadcopter is a complex multivariate nonlinear object, always affected by noise (air turbulence, wind ...). This paper presents the process of designing, simulating and testing the position and altitude controllers for UAV quadcopter when considering noise, on the basis of applying PID control law according to Cohen-Coon method. Simulation results on Matlab and experiment results on the UAV quadcopter F450 hardware show that the proposed PID controllers ensures precise control of position, altitude, tracking flight trajectory and maintaining stable balance in both air turbulence and light wind conditions.